Evolutionary psychology has generated substantial controversy and criticism. The criticism – which has been most forceful from proponents of constructivist, postmodernist and poststructuralist schools of thought – includes but is not limited to: disputes about the testability of evolutionary hypotheses, alternatives to some of the cognitive assumptions (such as massive modularity) frequently employed in evolutionary psychology, alleged vagueness stemming from evolutionary assumptions (such as uncertainty about the environment of evolutionary adaptation), differing stress on the importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, and political and ethical issues.[1]

The history of the debate from the critics' perspective is detailed by Gannon (2002).[9] Critics of evolutionary psychology include the philosophers of science David Buller author of Adapting Minds,[10] Robert C. Richardson author of Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology,[11] and Brendan Wallace, author of Getting Darwin Wrong: Why Evolutionary Psychology Won't Work. Other critics include neurobiologists like Steven Rose who edited "Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments against Evolutionary Psychology", and biological anthropologists like Jonathan Marks and social anthropologists like Tim Ingold and Marshall Sahlins.[10][12][13]

The evolutionary psychology response to critics has been covered in books by Segerstråle (2000), Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond,[14] Barkow (2005), Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists,[15] and Alcock (2001), The Triumph of Sociobiology.[4] See also: rebuttals to critics in Confer, et al. (2010),[16] Tooby and Cosmides (2005),[17] and Hagen (2005).[18]

Evolutionary psychologists have postulated that the mind is composed of cognitive modules specialized to perform specific tasks. Evolutionary psychologists have theorized that these specialized modules enabled our ancestors to react quickly and effectively to environmental challenges. As a result, domain-specific modules would have been selected for, whereas broad general-purpose cognitive mechanisms that worked more slowly would have been eliminated in the course of evolution.[19][20]

A number of cognitive scientists have criticized the modularity hypothesis, citing neurological evidence of brain plasticity and changes in neural networks in response to environmental stimuli and personal experiences.[19][20] Steven Quartz and Terry Sejnowski, for example, have argued that the view of the brain as a collection of specialized circuits, each chosen by natural selection and built according to a "genetic blueprint", is contradicted by evidence that cortical development is flexible and that areas of the brain can take on different functions.[21] Neurobiological research does not support the assumption by evolutionary psychologists that higher-level systems in the neocortex responsible for complex functions are massively modular.[22][23] Peters (2013) cites neurological research showing that higher-order neocortical areas can become functionally specialized by way of synaptic plasticity and the experience-dependent changes that take place at the synapse during learning and memory. As a result of experience and learning processes the developed brain can look modular although it is not necessarily innately modular.[22]

Another criticism is that there is little empirical support in favor of the domain-specific theory.[24][25] Leading evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby have found that performance on the selection task is content-dependent: People find it easier to detect violations of "if-then” rules when the rules can be interpreted as cheating on a social contract. From this Cosmides and Tooby and other evolutionary psychologists concluded that the mind consisted of domain-specific, context-sensitive modules (including a cheater-detection module).[25] Critics have suggested that Cosmides and Tooby use untested evolutionary assumptions to eliminate rival reasoning theories and that their conclusions contain inferential errors.[25][26] Davies et al., for example, have argued that Cosmides and Tooby did not succeed in eliminating the general-purpose theory because the adapted Wason selection task they used tested only one specific aspect of deductive reasoning and failed to examine other general-purpose reasoning mechanisms (e.g., reasoning based on syllogistic logic, predicate logic, modal logic, and inductive logic etc.).[25] Furthermore, Cosmides and Tooby use rules that incorrectly represent genuine social exchange situations. Specifically, they posit that someone who received a benefit and does not pay the cost is cheating. However, in real-life social exchange situations people can benefit and not pay without cheating (as in the case of receiving gifts or benefiting from charity).[25]

Some critics have suggested that our genes cannot hold the information to encode the brain and all its assumed modules.[22] Humans share a significant portion of their genome with other species and have corresponding DNA sequences so that the remaining genes must contain instructions for building specialized circuits that are absent in other mammals.[22][27][28]

One controversy concerns the particular modularity of mind theory used in evolutionary psychology (massive modularity). Critics argue in favor of other theories.[29][30]

Critics have questioned the proposed innateness of certain phobias, such as fear of snakes.[31] Recent evidence, however, suggests that Japanese macaques, and presumably other primates, have a snake-detection brain module—neurons in the preferential medial and dorsolateral pulvinar—that respond very rapidly to images of snakes, even without any prior exposure to snakes.[32][33]

One method employed by evolutionary psychologists is using knowledge of the environment of evolutionary adaptedness to generate hypotheses regarding possible psychological adaptations.

Part of the critique of the scientific basis of evolutionary psychology is of the concept of the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Evolutionary psychology often assumes that human evolution occurred in a uniform environment, and critics suggest that we know so little about the environment (or probably multiple environments) in which homo sapiens evolved, that explaining specific traits as an adaption to that environment becomes highly speculative.[34]

The evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides state that research is confined to certainties about the past, such as pregnancies only occurring in women, and that humans lived in groups. They argue that there are many environmental features that are known regarding our species' evolutionary history. They argue that our hunter-gatherer ancestors dealt with predators and prey, food acquisition and sharing, mate choice, child rearing, interpersonal aggression, interpersonal assistance, diseases and a host of other fairly predictable challenges that constituted significant selection pressures. Knowledge also include things such as nomadic, kin-based lifestyle in small groups, long life for mammals, low fertility for mammals, long female pregnancy and lactation, cooperative hunting and aggression, tool use, and sexual division of labor.[35]

Smith et al. (2001) criticized Thornhill and Palmer's hypothesis that a predisposition to rape in certain circumstances might be an evolved sexually dismorphic psychological adaptation. They developed a fitness cost/benefit mathematical model and populated it with estimates of certain parameters (some parameter estimates were based on studies of the Aché in Paraguay). Their model suggested that, on average, the costs of rape for a typical 25-year-old male outweigh benefits by a factor of ten to one. On the basis of their model and parameter estimates, they suggested that this would make it unlikely that rape generally would have net fitness benefits for most men. They also find that rape from raiding other tribes has lower costs but does not offer net fitness benefits, making it also unlikely that was an adaptation.[36][37]

Beckerman et al. (2009) disputed explanations of male aggression as a reproductive strategy. In a study of the Waorani tribes, the most aggressive warriors had the fewest descendants.[36][38]

Others have criticized the assertion that men universally preferred women with a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 or the "hourglass" figure. Studies of peoples in Peru and Tanzania found that men preferred ratios of 0.9.[36] Cashdan (2008) found that in male preferences for waist-to-hip ratios varied and were correlated to economic dependence for women; societies with less economic equality such as Greece, Japan and Portugal favored lower ratios while more egalitarian societies favored higher hip ratios.[36][39]

Recent studies utilizing realistic stimuli[clarification needed], by contrast, show that men display a cross-cultural consensus in preferring a low waist-to-hip ratio (i.e., hourglass-like figure), with some fluctuation depending on whether the local ecology is nutritionally-stressed.[40] Congenitally-blind men also display a preference for hourglass figures in women.[41]

A frequent criticism of evolutionary psychology is that its hypotheses are difficult or impossible to test, challenging its status as an empirical science. As an example, critics point out that many current traits likely evolved to serve different functions from those they do now, confounding attempts to make backward inferences into history.[42] Evolutionary psychologists acknowledge the difficulty of testing their hypotheses but assert it is nevertheless possible.[43]

Critics argue that many hypotheses put forward to explain the adaptive nature of human behavioural traits are "just-so stories"; neat adaptive explanations for the evolution of given traits that do not rest on any evidence beyond their own internal logic.[44] They allege that evolutionary psychology can predict many, or even all, behaviours for a given situation, including contradictory ones. Therefore, many human behaviours will always fit some hypotheses. Noam Chomsky argued:

"You find that people cooperate, you say, 'Yeah, that contributes to their genes' perpetuating.' You find that they fight, you say, ‘Sure, that’s obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else's. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it."[45][46]

"Those who have a professional knowledge of evolutionary biology know that it is not possible to cook up after the fact explanations of just any trait. There are important constraints on evolutionary explanation. More to the point, every decent evolutionary explanation has testable predictions about the design of the trait. For example, the hypothesis that pregnancy sickness is a byproduct of prenatal hormones predicts different patterns of food aversions than the hypothesis that it is an adaptation that evolved to protect the fetus from pathogens and plant toxins in food at the point in embryogenesis when the fetus is most vulnerable – during the first trimester. Evolutionary hypotheses – whether generated to discover a new trait or to explain one that is already known – carry predictions about the nature of that trait. The alternative – having no hypothesis about adaptive function – carries no predictions whatsoever. So which is the more constrained and sober scientific approach?"

A 2010 review article by evolutionary psychologists describes how an evolutionary theory may be empirically tested. A hypothesis is made about the evolutionary cause of a psychological phenomenon or phenomena. Then the researcher makes predictions that can be tested. This involves predicting that the evolutionary cause will have caused other effects than the ones already discovered and known. Then these predictions are tested. The authors argue numerous evolutionary theories have been tested in this way and confirmed or falsified.[47] Buller (2005) makes the point that the entire field of evolutionary psychology is never confirmed or falsified; only specific hypotheses, motivated by the general assumptions of evolutionary psychology, are testable. Accordingly, he views evolutionary psychology as a paradigm rather than a theory, and attributes this view to prominent evolutionary psychologists including Cosmides, Tooby, Buss, and Pinker.[48]

In his review article "Discovery and Confirmation in Evolutionary Psychology" (in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Psychology) Edouard Machery concludes:[49]

"Evolutionary psychology remains a very controversial approach in psychology, maybe because skeptics sometimes have little first-hand knowledge of this field, maybe because the research done by evolutionary psychologists is of uneven quality. However, there is little reason to endorse a principled skepticism toward evolutionary psychology: Although clearly fallible, the discovery heuristics and the strategies of confirmation used by evolutionary psychologists are on a firm grounding."

One aspect of evolutionary psychology is finding traits that have been shown to be universal in humans. Many critics have pointed out that many traits considered universal at some stage or another by evolutionary psychologists often turn out to be dependent on cultural and particular historical circumstances.[50][51][52] Critics allege that evolutionary psychologists tend to assume that their own current cultural context represents a universal human nature. For example, anthropologist Susan McKinnon argues that evolutionary theories of kinship rest on ethnocentric presuppositions. Evolutionary psychologists assert that the degree of genetic relatedness determines the extent of kinship (e.g., solidarity, nurturance, and altruism) because in order to maximize their own reproductive success, people "invest" only in their own genetic children or closely related kin. Steven Pinker, for instance, stated "You're either someone's mother or you aren't". McKinnon argues that such biologically centered constructions of relatedness result from a specific cultural context: the kinship category "mother" is relatively self-evident in Anglo-American cultures where biology is privileged but not in other societies where rank and marital status, not biology, determine who counts as a mother or where mother's sisters are also considered mothers and one's mother's brother is understood as the "male mother".[53]

In a review of Pinker's book on evolutionary psychology (The Blank Slate), Louis Menand wrote: "In general, the views that Pinker derives from 'the new sciences of human nature' are mainstream Clinton-era views: incarceration is regrettable but necessary; sexism is unacceptable, but men and women will always have different attitudes toward sex; dialogue is preferable to threats of force in defusing ethnic and nationalist conflicts; most group stereotypes are roughly correct, but we should never judge an individual by group stereotypes; rectitude is all very well, but 'noble guys tend to finish last'; and so on."[54]

However, evolutionary psychologists[who?] point out that their research actually focuses on commonalities between people of different cultures to help to identify "human psychological nature" and cultural universals. It is not a focus on local behavioral variation (which may sometimes be considered ethnocentric) that interests evolutionary psychologists; rather their focus is to find underlying psychological commonalities between people from various cultures.[55]

Evolutionary psychology is based on the theory that human physiology and psychology are influenced by genes. Evolutionary psychologists assume that genes contain instructions for building and operating an organism and that these instructions are passed from one generation to the next via genes.[56]

Lickliter and Honeycutt (2003) have argued that evolutionary psychology is a predeterministic and preformationistic approach that assumes that physical and psychological traits are predetermined and programmed while virtually ignoring non-genetic factors involved in human development. Even when evolutionary psychologists acknowledge the influence of the environment, they reduce its role to that of an activator or trigger of the predetermined developmental instructions presumed to be encoded in a person's genes. Lickliter and Honeycutt have stated that the assumption of genetic determinism is most evident in the theory that learning and reasoning are governed by innate, domain-specific modules. Evolutionary psychologists assume that modules preexist individual development and lie dormant in the structure of the organism, awaiting activation by some (usually unspecified) experiential events. Lickliter and Honeycutt have opposed this view and suggested that it is the entire developmental system, including the specific features of the environment a person actually encounters and interacts with (and not the environments of distant ancestors) that brings about any modularity of cognitive function.[56]

Critics argue that a reductionist analysis of the relationship between genes and behavior results in a flawed research program and a restricted interpretation of the evidence, creating problems for the creation of models attempting to explain behavior. Lewontin, Rose & Kamin instead advocate a dialectical interpretation of behavior in which "it is not just that wholes are more than the sum of their parts, it is that parts become qualitatively new by being parts of the whole". They argue that reductionist explanations such as the hierarchical reductionism proposed by Richard Dawkins will cause the researcher to miss dialectical ones.[58] Similarly, Hilary Rose criticizes evolutionary psychologists' explanations of child abuse as excessively reductionist. As an example she cites Martin Daly and Margot Wilson's theory that stepfathers are more abusive because they lack the nurturing instinct of natural parents and can increase their reproductive success in this way. According to Rose this does not explain why most stepfathers do not abuse their children and why some biological fathers do. She also argues that cultural pressures can override the genetic predisposition to nurture as in the case of sex-selective infanticide prevalent in some cultures where male offspring are favored over female offspring.[59]

Evolutionary psychologists Workman and Reader reply that while reductionism may be a "dirty word" to some it is actually an important scientific principle. They argue it is at the root of discoveries such as the world being made up of atoms and complex life being the result of evolution. At the same time they emphasize that it is important to look at all "levels" of explanations, e.g. both psychologists looking at environmental causes of depression and neuroscientists looking the brain contribute to different aspects of our knowledge of depression. Workman and Reader also deny the accusation of genetic determinism, asserting that genes usually do not cause behaviors absolutely but predispose to certain behaviors that are affected by factors such as culture and an individual's life history.[60]

A common critique is that evolutionary psychology does not address the complexity of individual development and experience and fails to explain the influence of genes on behavior in individual cases.[61]

Critics assert that evolutionary psychology has trouble developing research that can distinguish between environmental and cultural explanation and adaptive evolutionary explanations. Some studies have been criticized for their tendency to attribute to evolutionary processes elements of human cognition that may be attributable to social processes (e.g. preference for particular physical features in mates), cultural artifacts (e.g. patriarchy and the roles of women in society), or dialectical considerations (e.g. behaviours in which biology interacts with society, as when a biologically determined skin colour determines how one is treated). Evolutionary psychologists are frequently criticized for ignoring the vast bodies of literature in psychology, philosophy, politics and social studies. Both sides of the debate stress that statements such as "biology vs. environment" and "genes vs. culture" amount to false dichotomies, and outspoken critics of sociobiology such as Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose and Leon Kamin helped to popularise a "dialectical" approach to questions of human behaviour, where biology and environment interact in complex ways to produce what we see.[62]

Evolutionary psychologists respond that their discipline is not primarily concerned with explaining the behavior of specific individuals, but rather broad categories of human behaviors across societies and cultures. It is the search for species-wide psychological adaptations (or "human nature") that distinguishes evolutionary psychology from purely cultural or social explanations. These psychological adaptations include cognitive decision rules that respond to different environmental, cultural, and social circumstances in ways that are (on average) adaptive.[citation needed]

Evolutionary psychologists Confer et al. argue that evolutionary psychology fully accepts nature-nurture interactionism, and that it is possible to test the theories in order to distinguish between different explanations.[47]

Critics point out that within evolutionary biology there are many other non-adaptive pathways along which evolution can move to produce the behaviors seen in humans today. Natural selection is not the only evolutionary process that can change gene frequencies and produce novel traits. Genetic drift is caused by chance variation in the genes, environment, or development. Evolutionary by-products are traits that were not specially designed for an adaptive function, although they may also be species-typical and may also confer benefits on the organism. A "spandrel" is a term coined by Gould and Lewontin (1979a) for traits which confer no adaptive advantage to an organism, but are 'carried along' by an adaptive trait. Gould advocates the hypothesis that cognition in humans came about as a spandrel: "Natural selection made the human brain big, but most of our mental properties and potentials may be spandrels – that is, nonadaptive side consequences of building a device with such structural complexity".[63] Once a trait acquired by some other mechanism confers an adaptive advantage, it may be open to further selection as an "exaptation".[64] Evolutionary psychologists suggest that critics misrepresent their field, and that their empirical research is designed to help identify which psychological traits are prone to adaptations, and which are not.[65]

Some have argued that even if the theoretical assumptions of evolutionary psychology turned out to be true, it would nonetheless lead to methodological problems that would compromise its practice.[66][11] The disjunction and grain problems are argued to create methodological challenges related to the indeterminacy of evolutionary psychology’s adaptive functions. That is, the inability to correctly choose, from a number of possible answers to the question: "what is the function of a given mechanism?"[66]

The disjunction problem[66][67] occurs when a mechanism appears to respond to one thing (F), but is also correlated with another (G). Whenever F is present, G is also present, and the mechanism seems to respond to both F and G. The difficulty thus involves deciding whether to characterize the mechanism's adaptive function as being related to F, G, or both. "For example, a frogs pre-catching mechanism responds to flies, bees, food pellets, etc.; so is its adaptation attuned to flies, bees, fleebees, pellets, all of these, or just some?"[66]

The grain problem[66][68] refers to the challenge in knowing what kind of environmental 'problem' an adaptive mental mechanism might have solved. As summarized by Sterenly & Griffiths (1999): "What are the problems 'out there' in the environment? Is the problem of mate choice a single problem or a mosaic of many distinct problems? These problems might include: When should I be unfaithful to my usual partner? When should I desert my old partner? When should I help my sibs find a partner? When and how should I punish infidelity?"[69] The grain problem therefore refers to the possibility that an adaptive problem may actually involve a set of nested 'sub-problems' "which may themselves relate to different input domains or situations. Franks states that "if both adaptive problems and adaptive solutions are indeterminate, what chance is there for evolutionary psychology?"[66]

Franks also states that "The arguments in no sense count against a general evolutionary explanation of psychology." and that by relaxing assumptions the problems may be avoided, although this may reduce the ability to make detailed models.[66]

Maladaptive behaviors such as homosexuality and suicide seem to reduce reproductive success and pose a challenge for evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists have proposed explanations, such that there may be higher fertility rates for the female relatives of homosexual men, thus progressing a potential homosexual gene,[70] or that they may be byproducts of adaptive behaviors that usually increase reproductive success. However, a review by Confer et al. states that they "remain at least somewhat inexplicable on the basis of current evolutionary psychological accounts".[47] If seen to be of a maladaptive nature, and therefore disregarding the evolutionary psychological evidence for things such as homosexuality, these behaviours can simply be seen in a no different manner than other maladaptations such as poor eyesight.

Many critics have argued that evolutionary psychology and sociobiology justify existing social hierarchies and reactionary policies.[71][72] Evolutionary psychologists have been accused of conflating "is" and "ought", and evolutionary psychology has been used to argue against social change (because the way things are now has been evolved and adapted) and against social justice (e.g. the argument that the rich are only rich because they've inherited greater abilities, so programs to raise the standards of the poor are doomed to fail).[58]

It has also been suggested by critics that evolutionary psychologists' theories and interpretations of empirical data rely heavily on ideological assumptions about race and gender.[73]Halford Fairchild, for example, argues that J. Philippe Rushton's work on race and intelligence was influenced by preconceived notions about race and was "cloaked in the nomenclature, language and 'objectivity'" of evolutionary psychology, sociobiology and population genetics.[74]

Moreover, evolutionary psychology has been criticized for its ethical implications. Richardon (2007) and Wilson et al. (2003) have cited the theories in A Natural History of Rape where rape is described as a form of mate choice that enhances male fitness as examples.[72][11] Critics have expressed concern over the moral consequences of such evolutionary theories and some critics have understood them to justify rape.[72][11] However, empirical research has found that, compared to a control group, exposure to evolutionary psychology theories had no observable impact on male judgments of men’s criminal sexual behavior.[75]

Evolutionary psychologists caution against committing the naturalistic fallacy – the idea that "ought can be derived from is" and that "what is natural" is necessarily a moral good.[72][76] In the book The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker contends that critics have committed two logical fallacies:

The naturalistic fallacy is the idea that what is found in nature is good. It was the basis for Social Darwinism, the belief that helping the poor and sick would get in the way of evolution, which depends on the survival of the fittest. Today, biologists denounce the Naturalistic Fallacy because they want to describe the natural world honestly, without people deriving morals about how we ought to behave -- as in: If birds and beasts engage in adultery, infanticide, cannibalism, it must be OK. The moralistic fallacy is that what is good is found in nature. It lies behind the bad science in nature-documentary voiceovers: lions are mercy-killers of the weak and sick, mice feel no pain when cats eat them, dung beetles recycle dung to benefit the ecosystem and so on. It also lies behind the romantic belief that humans cannot harbor desires to kill, rape, lie, or steal because that would be too depressing or reactionary.[77]

Similarly, the authors of A Natural History of Rape, Thornhill and Palmer, as well as McKibbin et al. respond to allegations that evolutionary psychologists legitimizes rape by arguing that their critics' reasoning is a naturalistic fallacy in the same way it would be a fallacy to accuse the scientists doing research on the causes of cancer of justifying cancer. Instead, they argue that understanding the causes of rape may help create preventive measures.[72][78]

Wilson et al. (2003) have stated that evolutionary psychologists are themselves confused about the naturalistic fallacy and misuse it to forestall legitimate ethical discussions. The authors have argued that a factual statement must be combined with an ethical statement to derive an ethical conclusion. Thus, "ought" cannot be described exclusively from "is". They have suggested that if one combines Thornhill and Palmer's theory that rape increases the fitness of a woman's offspring with the ethical premise that it is right to increase fitness of offspring, the resulting deductively valid conclusion is that rape has also positive effects and that its ethical status is ambiguous. Wilson et al. have stated: "Any critic who objects to Thornhill and Palmer's evolutionary interpretation of rape on ethical grounds is dismissed with the phrase 'naturalistic fallacy' like a child stupid enough to write 2+2=5, stifling any meaningful discussion of the ethical issues surrounding the subject of rape. Yet, it is Thornhill and Palmer who are thinking fallaciously by using the naturalistic fallacy in this way." However, in the same article these authors also note that "...we want to stress that we are sympathetic with the goals of evolutionary psychology and think that research should proceed on all fronts, including the possibility that unethical behaviors such as rape evolved by natural selection".[72]

Part of the controversy has consisted in each side accusing the other of holding or supporting extreme political viewpoints: evolutionary psychology has often been accused of supporting right-wing politics, whereas critics have been accused of being motivated by Marxist view points.[34][79]

Linguist and activist Noam Chomsky has said that evolutionary psychologists often ignore evidence that might harm the political status quo:

The founder of what is now called "sociobiology" or "evolutionary psychology"-the natural historian and anarchist Peter Kropotkin-concluded from his investigations of animals and human life and society that "mutual aid" was a primary factor in evolution, which tended naturally toward communist anarchism....Of course, Kropotkin is not considered the founding figure of the field and is usually dismissed if mentioned at all, because his quasi-Darwinian speculations led to unwanted conclusions.[80]

Chomsky has also said that not enough is known about human nature to point to any political conclusions.[80]

Evolutionary psychologist Glenn Wilson argues that "promoting recognition of the true power and role of instincts is not the same as advocating the total abandonment of social restraint".[81] Left-wing philosopher Peter Singer in his book A Darwinian Left has argued that the view of human nature provided by evolution is compatible with and should be incorporated into the ideological framework of the Left.

Evolutionary psychology critics have argued that researchers use their research to promote a right-wing agenda. Evolutionary psychologists conducted a 2007 study investigating the views of a sample of 168 United States PhD psychology students. The authors concluded that those who self-identified as adaptationists were much less conservative than the general population average. They also found no differences compared to non-adaptationist students and found non-adaptationists to express a preference for less strict and quantitative scientific methodology than adaptationists.[82]

^Segerstråle, Ullica Christina Olofsdotter (2000). Defenders of the truth: The battle for science in the sociobiology debate and beyond. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-850505-1.

1.
Evolutionary psychology
–
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological structure from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which psychological traits are evolved adaptations – that is. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, Evolutionary psychologists argue that much of human behavior is the output of psychological adaptations that evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments. The theories and findings of EP have applications in fields, including economics, environment, health, law, management, psychiatry, politics. Evolutionary psychology is an approach that views human nature as the product of a set of evolved psychological adaptations to recurring problems in the ancestral environment. Evolutionary psychology adopts an understanding of the mind that is based on the theory of mind. EP views the brain as comprising many functional mechanisms, called psychological adaptations or evolved cognitive mechanisms or cognitive modules. Some mechanisms, termed domain-specific, deal with recurrent adaptive problems over the course of evolutionary history. Domain-general mechanisms, on the hand, are proposed to deal with evolutionary novelty. EP has roots in psychology and evolutionary biology but also draws on behavioral ecology, artificial intelligence, genetics, ethology, anthropology, archaeology, biology. Most of what is now labeled as sociobiological research is now confined to the field of behavioral ecology, Nikolaas Tinbergens four categories of questions can help to clarify the distinctions between several different, but complementary, types of explanations. Evolutionary psychology focuses primarily on the why, Questions, while traditional psychology focuses on the how. Evolutionary psychology is founded on several core premises, the brain is an information processing device, and it produces behavior in response to external and internal inputs. The brains adaptive mechanisms were shaped by natural and sexual selection, different neural mechanisms are specialized for solving problems in humanitys evolutionary past. The brain has evolved specialized neural mechanisms that were designed for solving problems that recurred over deep evolutionary time, Human psychology consists of many specialized mechanisms, each sensitive to different classes of information or inputs. These mechanisms combine to produce manifest behavior, Evolutionary psychology has its historical roots in Charles Darwins theory of natural selection. In The Origin of Species, Darwin predicted that psychology would develop an evolutionary basis, Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Darwins work inspired William Jamess functionalist approach to psychology, Darwins theories of evolution, adaptation, and natural selection have provided insight into why brains function the way they do

2.
Straw man
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A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponents argument, while refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be attacking a straw man, however, Hamblins classic text Fallacies neither mentions it as a distinct type, nor even as a historical term. The origins of the term are unclear, the usage of the term in rhetoric suggests a human figure made of straw which is easily knocked down or destroyed, such as a military training dummy, scarecrow, or effigy. The rhetorical technique is called an Aunt Sally in the UK. One common folk etymology is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe in order to indicate their willingness to be a false witness. This reasoning is a fallacy of relevance, it fails to address the proposition in question by misrepresenting the opposing position, for example, Quoting an opponents words out of context—i. e. Choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponents intentions, presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then denying that persons arguments—thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position has been defeated. Oversimplifying an opponents argument, then attacking this oversimplified version, Straw man arguments often arise in public debates such as a prohibition debate, A, We should relax the laws on beer. B, No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic, the original proposal was to relax laws on beer. Person B has misconstrued/misrepresented this proposal by responding to it as if it had something like unrestricted access to intoxicants. It is a fallacy because Person A never advocated allowing said unrestricted access to intoxicants. In a 1977 appeal of a U. S and this was a straw man designed to alarm the appeal judges, the idea that the precedent set by one case would literally make it impossible to convict any bank robbers is remote. An example often given of a man is US President Richard Nixons 1952 Checkers speech. When campaigning for president in 1952, Nixon was accused of having illegally appropriated $18,000 in campaign funds for his personal use. And, you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say right now. This was a straw man response, his critics had never criticized the dog as a gift or suggested he return it and this argument was successful at distracting many people from the funds, and portraying his critics as nitpicking and heartless. Nixon received an outpouring of support and remained on the ticket. He and Eisenhower were elected by a landslide, tindale comments that the portrait painted of Darwinian ideology is a caricature, one not borne out by any objective survey of the works cited

3.
Nature versus nurture
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The alliterative expression nature and nurture in English has been in use since at least the Elizabethan period and goes back to medieval French. The combination of the two concepts as complementary is ancient, galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his half-cousin, Charles Darwin. The view that humans acquire all or almost all their traits from nurture was termed tabula rasa by John Locke in 1690. A blank slate view in human developmental psychology assuming that human behavioral traits develop almost exclusively from environmental influences, was held during much of the 20th century. The debate between blank-slate denial of the influence of heritability, and the view admitting both environmental and heritable traits, has often been cast in terms of nature versus nurture. These two conflicting approaches to human development were at the core of a dispute over research agendas throughout the second half of the 20th century. As both nature and nurture factors were found to contribute substantially, often in an extricable manner, in their 2014 survey of scientists, many respondents wrote that the dichotomy of nature versus nurture had outlived its usefulness, and should be retired. The reason is that in many fields of research, close feedback loops have been found in nature and nurture influence one another constantly. As in ecology and behavioral genetics, researchers think nurture has an influence on nature. Similarly in other fields, the line between an inherited and an acquired trait becomes unclear, as in epigenetics or fetal development. John Lockes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is often cited as the document of the blank slate view. Locke was criticizing René Descartes claim of an idea of God universal to humanity. Lockes view was criticized in his own time. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury complained that by denying the possibility of any innate ideas, Locke threw all order and virtue out of the world, Lockes was not the predominant view in the 19th century, which on the contrary tended to focus on instinct. The question of innate ideas or instincts were of importance in the discussion of free will in moral philosophy. In 18th-century philosophy, this was cast in terms of innate ideas establishing the presence of a universal virtue, during this time, the social sciences developed as the project of studying the influence of culture in clean isolation from questions related to biology. Franz Boass The Mind of Primitive Man established a program that would dominate American anthropology for the fifteen years. The tool of twin studies was developed after World War I as an experimental setup intended to exclude all confounders based on inherited behavioral traits, such studies are designed to decompose the variability of a given trait in a given population into a genetic and an environmental component

4.
Neurobiology
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Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. It is a branch of biology, that deals with the anatomy, biochemistry, molecular biology. It also draws upon fields including mathematics, pharmacology, physics, engineering, Neuroscience has also given rise to such other disciplines as neuroeducation, neuroethics, and neurolaw. The techniques used by neuroscientists have also expanded enormously, from molecular and cellular studies of neurons to imaging of sensory. Recent theoretical advances in neuroscience have also aided by the study of neural networks. As a result of the number of scientists who study the nervous system, several prominent neuroscience organizations have been formed to provide a forum to all neuroscientists. The earliest study of the system dates to ancient Egypt. Manuscripts dating to 1700 BC indicate that the Egyptians had some knowledge about symptoms of brain damage, early views on the function of the brain regarded it to be a cranial stuffing of sorts. In Egypt, from the late Middle Kingdom onwards, the brain was removed in preparation for mummification. It was believed at the time that the heart was the seat of intelligence, the view that the heart was the source of consciousness was not challenged until the time of the Greek physician Hippocrates. He believed that the brain was not only involved with sensation—since most specialized organs are located in the head near the brain—but was also the seat of intelligence, plato also speculated that the brain was the seat of the rational part of the soul. Aristotle, however, believed the heart was the center of intelligence, abulcasis, Averroes, Avicenna, Avenzoar, and Maimonides, active in the Medieval Muslim world, described a number of medical problems related to the brain. In Renaissance Europe, Vesalius, René Descartes, and Thomas Willis also made contributions to neuroscience. Studies of the brain became more sophisticated after the invention of the microscope, the procedure used a silver chromate salt to reveal the intricate structures of individual neurons. His technique was used by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and led to the formation of the neuron doctrine, Golgi and Ramón y Cajal shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for their extensive observations, descriptions, and categorizations of neurons throughout the brain. In parallel with this research, work with brain-damaged patients by Paul Broca suggested that regions of the brain were responsible for certain functions. Carl Wernicke further developed the theory of the specialization of specific structures in language comprehension and production. During the 20th century, neuroscience began to be recognized as an academic discipline in its own right

5.
Tim Ingold
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Tim Ingold FBA FRSE Dr h. c is a British anthropologist, and Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He was educated at Leighton Park School in Reading, UK and he attended Churchill College, Cambridge, initially studying natural sciences but shifting to anthropology. His doctoral work was conducted with the Skolt Saami of northeastern Finland, studying their ecological adaptations, social organisation, Ingold taught at the University of Helsinki and then the University of Manchester, becoming Professor in 1990 and Max Gluckman Professor in 1995. In 1999 he moved to the University of Aberdeen. in 2015 he received the honorary doctorate by Leuphana University of Lüneburg and his interests are wide-ranging and his scholarly approach is individualistic. This has taken him to examining the use of lines in culture, and he discusses his entire career in From science to art and back again, The pendulum of an anthropologist. Fellow of the British Academy Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Honorary doctorate of the Leuphana University of Lüneburg Ingold, Ingold, T. Making, Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. Ingold, T. & Palsson, G. Biosocial Becomings, imagining Landscapes, Past, Present and Future. Being Alive, Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, Ingold, T. Redrawing Anthropology, Materials, movements, lines. Ingold, T. & Vergunst, J. Ways of Walking, Ethnography, Ingold, T. Lines, A Brief History. The perception of the environment, essays on livelihood, dwelling, key Debates In Anthropology Ingold, T. The appropriation of nature, essays on human ecology and social relations, Ingold T. Hunters, pastoralists and ranchers, reindeer economies and their transformations. On the Distinction between Evolution and History, vol.1, num.1,2002, pp. 5–24 Tim Ingold. Audio recording of lecture given in University College Dublin, February 2012, interview with Tim Ingold on October 05,2011. In Ponto Urbe, Revista do Núcleo de Antropologia Urbana da USP, Num.11, Dec.2012

6.
Marshall Sahlins
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Marshall David Sahlins is an American anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory. He is currently Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Sahlins received his bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees at the University of Michigan where he studied with evolutionary anthropologist Leslie White. He earned his PhD at Columbia University in 1954, there his intellectual influences included Eric Wolf, Morton Fried, Sidney Mintz, and the economic historian Karl Polanyi. After receiving his PhD, he returned to teach at the University of Michigan, in 1968, Sahlins signed the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. In the late 1960s, he spent two years in Paris, where he was exposed to French intellectual life and the student protests of May 1968. In 1973, he took a position in the department at the University of Chicago. His commitment to activism has continued throughout his time at Chicago, the resignation followed the publication in that month of Chagnons memoir and widespread coverage of the memoir, including a profile of Chagnon in the New York Times magazine. Alongside his research and activism, Sahlins trained a host of students who went on to become prominent in the field, one such student, Gayle Rubin, said, Sahlins is a mesmerizing speaker and a brilliant thinker. By the time he finished the first lecture, I was hooked, in 2001, Sahlins became publisher of Prickly Pear Pamphlets, which was started in 1993 by anthropologists Keith Hart and Anna Grimshaw, and was renamed Prickly Paradigm Press. The imprint specializes in small pamphlets on unconventional subjects in anthropology, critical theory, philosophy and his brother was the writer and comedian Bernard Sahlins. Although his focus has been the entire Pacific, Sahlins has done most of his research in Fiji, Sahlinss training under Leslie White, a proponent of materialist and evolutionary anthropology at the University of Michigan, is reflected in his early work. In his Evolution and Culture, he touched on the areas of cultural evolution and he divided the evolution of societies into general and specific. General evolution is the tendency of cultural and social systems to increase in complexity, organization, however, as the various cultures are not isolated, there is interaction and a diffusion of their qualities. This leads cultures to develop in different ways, as elements are introduced to them in different combinations. Moala, Sahlinss first major monograph, exemplifies this approach, stone Age Economics collects some of Sahlinss key essays in substantivist economic anthropology. Perhaps Sahlinss most famous essay from the collection, The Original Affluent Society, stone Age Economics inaugurated Sahlinss persistent critique of the discipline of economics, particularly in its Neoclassical form. After the publication of Culture and Practical Reason in 1976, his focus shifted to the relation between history and anthropology, and the way different cultures understand and make history. Of central concern in this work is the problem of historical transformation, earlier evolutionary models, by contrast, claimed that culture arose as an adaptation to the natural environment

7.
Neuroplasticity
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Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity or neural plasticity, is an umbrella term that describes lasting change to the brain throughout an individuals life course. The term gained prominence in the half of the 20th century. This notion is in contrast with the scientific consensus that the brain develops during a critical period in early childhood. Neuroplasticity can be observed at multiple scales, from changes in individual neurons to larger-scale changes such as cortical remapping in response to injury. However, cortical remapping is more extensive early in development, at the single cell level, synaptic plasticity refers to changes in the connections between neurons, whereas non-synaptic plasticity refers to changes in their intrinsic excitability. From the late 1500s neurologists largely supported the theory of localizationism, the famed astronomer Galileo Galilei is credited with the origins of localizationism. He saw the universe as a giant machine rather than as a living organism, when applied to the brain, this means that its parts have hardwired functions as a machine has parts designated to a certain area. According to this theory, the specialization of each brain area could mean that localized damage to one area would lead to a loss of the function that it served. This led physicians to consider certain diseases or conditions arising from damage as untreatable. If two nearby neurons often produce an impulse in close proximity, their functional properties may converge. Conversely, neurons that are not regularly activated simultaneously may be likely to functionally converge. Cortical organization, especially in systems, is often described in terms of maps. For example, sensory information from the projects to one cortical site. As a result, the representation of sensory inputs from the body resembles a somatotopic map. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several groups began exploring the impact of interfering with sensory inputs on cortical map reorganization, Michael Merzenich, Jon Kaas and Doug Rasmusson were some of those researchers. They found that if the map is deprived of its input, it activates at a later time in response to other. Their findings have been corroborated and extended by many research groups. Merzenichs study involved the mapping of owl monkey hands before and after amputation of the third digit, before amputation, there were five distinct areas, one corresponding to each digit of the experimental hand

8.
Synapse
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In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron. Some authors generalize this concept to include the communication from a neuron to any cell type, such as to a motor cell. Santiago Ramón y Cajal proposed that neurons are not continuous throughout the body, yet still communicate with each other, an idea known as the neuron doctrine. Synapses are essential to function, neurons are cells that are specialized to pass signals to individual target cells. At a synapse, the membrane of the signal-passing neuron comes into close apposition with the membrane of the target cell. Both the presynaptic and postsynaptic sites contain extensive arrays of a molecular machinery that link the two together and carry out the signaling process. In many synapses, the part is located on an axon. Astrocytes also exchange information with the neurons, responding to synaptic activity and, in turn. The neurotransmitter may initiate a response or a secondary messenger pathway that may either excite or inhibit the postsynaptic neuron. Chemical synapses can be classified according to the released, glutamatergic, GABAergic, cholinergic. Because of the complexity of receptor signal transduction, chemical synapses can have effects on the postsynaptic cell. The main advantage of a synapse is the rapid transfer of signals from one cell to the next. Synaptic communication is distinct from a coupling, in which communication between neurons occurs via indirect electric fields. Synapses can be classified by the type of cellular structures serving as the pre-, the vast majority of synapses in the mammalian nervous system are classical axo-dendritic synapses, however, a variety of other arrangements exist. These include but are not limited to axo-axonic, dendro-dendritic, axo-secretory, somato-dendritic, dendro-somatic, the axon can synapse onto a dendrite, onto a cell body, or onto another axon or axon terminal, as well as into the bloodstream or diffusely into the adjacent nervous tissue. It is widely accepted that the plays a role in the formation of memory. The strength of two connected neural pathways is thought to result in the storage of information, resulting in memory and this process of synaptic strengthening is known as long-term potentiation. By altering the release of neurotransmitters, the plasticity of synapses can be controlled in the presynaptic cell, the postsynaptic cell can be regulated by altering the function and number of its receptors

9.
Social contract
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The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract, a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept, the starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent any political order that Thomas Hobbes termed the state of nature. In this condition, individuals actions are only by their personal power. Each solved the problem of authority in a different way. Grotius posited that human beings had natural rights. Thomas Hobbes famously said that in a state of nature, human life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, though the sovereigns edicts may well be arbitrary and tyrannical, Hobbes saw absolute government as the only alternative to the terrifying anarchy of a state of nature. Hobbes asserted that humans consent to abdicate their rights in favor of the authority of government. Pufendorf disputed Hobbess equation of a state of nature with war, the central assertion of social contract approaches is that law and political order are not natural, but are instead human creations. According to Hobbes citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it is too weak to act effectively to suppress factionalism, the Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence. The concept of the contract is posed by Glaucon, as described by Plato in The Republic. They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good, to suffer injustice, evil, for no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist, he would be mad if he did. Such is the account, Socrates, of the nature. The social contract theory also appears in Crito, another dialogue from Plato, Social contract formulations are preserved in many of the worlds oldest records. The Buddhist text of the second century BCE, Mahāvastu, recounts the legend of Mahasammata, then gradually the process of cosmic decay began its work, and mankind became earthbound, and felt the need of food and shelter. As men lost their glory, distinctions of class arose, and they entered into agreements with one another, accepting the institution of private property. He was called the Great Chosen One, and he received the title of raja because he pleased the people, in his rock edicts, the Buddhist king Asoka was said to have argued for a broad and far-reaching social contract. Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another. There never was such a thing as justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm

10.
Syllogism
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A syllogism is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. In its earliest form, defined by Aristotle, from the combination of a statement and a specific statement. For example, knowing that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a man, Syllogistic arguments are usually represented in a three-line form, All men are mortal. In antiquity, two theories of the syllogism existed, Aristotelian syllogistic and Stoic syllogistic. Aristotle defines the syllogism as. a discourse in which certain things having been supposed, despite this very general definition, in Aristotles work Prior Analytics, he limits himself to categorical syllogisms that consist of three categorical propositions. From the Middle Ages onwards, categorical syllogism and syllogism were usually used interchangeably and this article is concerned only with this traditional use. The use of syllogisms as a tool for understanding can be dated back to the logical reasoning discussions of Aristotle, the onset of a New Logic, or logica nova, arose alongside the reappearance of Prior Analytics, the work in which Aristotle develops his theory of the syllogism. Prior Analytics, upon re-discovery, was regarded by logicians as a closed and complete body of doctrine, leaving very little for thinkers of the day to debate. Aristotles theories on the syllogism for assertoric sentences was considered especially remarkable, Aristotles Prior Analytics did not, however, incorporate such a comprehensive theory on the modal syllogism—a syllogism that has at least one modalized premise. Aristotles terminology in this aspect of his theory was deemed vague and in many cases unclear and his original assertions on this specific component of the theory were left up to a considerable amount of conversation, resulting in a wide array of solutions put forth by commentators of the day. The system for modal syllogisms laid forth by Aristotle would ultimately be deemed unfit for practical use, boethius contributed an effort to make the ancient Aristotelian logic more accessible. While his Latin translation of Prior Analytics went primarily unused before the twelfth century and his perspective on syllogisms can be found in other works as well, such as Logica Ingredientibus. With the help of Abelards distinction between de dicto modal sentences and de re modal sentences, medieval logicians began to shape a coherent concept of Aristotles modal syllogism model. For two hundred years after Buridans discussions, little was said about syllogistic logic, the Aristotelian syllogism dominated Western philosophical thought for many centuries. In the 17th century, Sir Francis Bacon rejected the idea of syllogism as being the best way to draw conclusions in nature. Instead, Bacon proposed a more inductive approach to the observation of nature, in the 19th century, modifications to syllogism were incorporated to deal with disjunctive and conditional statements. Kant famously claimed, in Logic, that logic was the one completed science, though there were alternative systems of logic such as Avicennian logic or Indian logic elsewhere, Kants opinion stood unchallenged in the West until 1879 when Frege published his Begriffsschrift. This introduced a calculus, a method of representing categorical statements by the use of quantifiers, in the last 20 years, Bolzanos work has resurfaced and become subject of both translation and contemporary study

11.
Predicate logic
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First-order logic – also known as first-order predicate calculus and predicate logic – is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. This distinguishes it from propositional logic, which does not use quantifiers, Sometimes theory is understood in a more formal sense, which is just a set of sentences in first-order logic. In first-order theories, predicates are associated with sets. In interpreted higher-order theories, predicates may be interpreted as sets of sets, There are many deductive systems for first-order logic which are both sound and complete. Although the logical relation is only semidecidable, much progress has been made in automated theorem proving in first-order logic. First-order logic also satisfies several metalogical theorems that make it amenable to analysis in proof theory, such as the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem, first-order logic is the standard for the formalization of mathematics into axioms and is studied in the foundations of mathematics. Peano arithmetic and Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory are axiomatizations of number theory and set theory, respectively, no first-order theory, however, has the strength to uniquely describe a structure with an infinite domain, such as the natural numbers or the real line. Axioms systems that do fully describe these two structures can be obtained in stronger logics such as second-order logic, for a history of first-order logic and how it came to dominate formal logic, see José Ferreirós. While propositional logic deals with simple declarative propositions, first-order logic additionally covers predicates, a predicate takes an entity or entities in the domain of discourse as input and outputs either True or False. Consider the two sentences Socrates is a philosopher and Plato is a philosopher, in propositional logic, these sentences are viewed as being unrelated and might be denoted, for example, by variables such as p and q. The predicate is a philosopher occurs in both sentences, which have a structure of a is a philosopher. The variable a is instantiated as Socrates in the first sentence and is instantiated as Plato in the second sentence, while first-order logic allows for the use of predicates, such as is a philosopher in this example, propositional logic does not. Relationships between predicates can be stated using logical connectives, consider, for example, the first-order formula if a is a philosopher, then a is a scholar. This formula is a statement with a is a philosopher as its hypothesis. The truth of this depends on which object is denoted by a. Quantifiers can be applied to variables in a formula, the variable a in the previous formula can be universally quantified, for instance, with the first-order sentence For every a, if a is a philosopher, then a is a scholar. The universal quantifier for every in this sentence expresses the idea that the if a is a philosopher. The negation of the sentence For every a, if a is a philosopher, then a is a scholar is logically equivalent to the sentence There exists a such that a is a philosopher and a is not a scholar

12.
Hypotheses
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A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations that cannot satisfactorily be explained with the scientific theories. Even though the hypothesis and theory are often used synonymously. A working hypothesis is a provisionally accepted hypothesis proposed for further research, P is the assumption in a What If question. Remember, the way that you prove an implication is by assuming the hypothesis, --Philip Wadler In its ancient usage, hypothesis referred to a summary of the plot of a classical drama. The English word hypothesis comes from the ancient Greek ὑπόθεσις word hupothesis, in Platos Meno, Socrates dissects virtue with a method used by mathematicians, that of investigating from a hypothesis. In this sense, hypothesis refers to an idea or to a convenient mathematical approach that simplifies cumbersome calculations. In common usage in the 21st century, a hypothesis refers to an idea whose merit requires evaluation. For proper evaluation, the framer of a hypothesis needs to define specifics in operational terms, a hypothesis requires more work by the researcher in order to either confirm or disprove it. In due course, a hypothesis may become part of a theory or occasionally may grow to become a theory itself. Normally, scientific hypotheses have the form of a mathematical model, in entrepreneurial science, a hypothesis is used to formulate provisional ideas within a business setting. The formulated hypothesis is then evaluated where either the hypothesis is proven to be true or false through a verifiability- or falsifiability-oriented Experiment, any useful hypothesis will enable predictions by reasoning. It might predict the outcome of an experiment in a setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature. The prediction may also invoke statistics and only talk about probabilities, other philosophers of science have rejected the criterion of falsifiability or supplemented it with other criteria, such as verifiability or coherence. The scientific method involves experimentation, to test the ability of some hypothesis to adequately answer the question under investigation. In contrast, unfettered observation is not as likely to raise unexplained issues or open questions in science, a thought experiment might also be used to test the hypothesis as well. In framing a hypothesis, the investigator must not currently know the outcome of a test or that it remains reasonably under continuing investigation, only in such cases does the experiment, test or study potentially increase the probability of showing the truth of a hypothesis

13.
Hunter-gatherer
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A hunter-gatherer is a human living in a society in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, in contrast to agricultural societies, which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was humanitys first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history, following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers who did not change have been displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their activity with horticulture and/or keeping animals. In the 1970s, Lewis Binford suggested that humans were obtaining food via scavenging. Early humans in the Lower Paleolithic lived in forests and woodlands, which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals for meat, according to this view and this hypothesis does not necessarily contradict the scavenging hypothesis, both subsistence strategies could have been in use – sequentially, alternating or even simultaneously. It remained the only mode of subsistence until the end of the Mesolithic period some 10,000 years ago and this specialization of work also involved creating specialized tools such as, fishing nets, hooks, and bone harpoons. The transition into the subsequent Neolithic period is defined by the unprecedented development of nascent agricultural practices. Agriculture originated and spread in different areas including the Middle East, Asia, Mesoamerica. Forest gardening was also being used as a production system in various parts of the world over this period. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions, in the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved, whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually superior introduced species were selected and incorporated into the gardens, many groups continued their hunter-gatherer ways of life, although their numbers have continually declined, partly as a result of pressure from growing agricultural and pastoral communities. Many of them reside in the world, either in arid regions or tropical forests. Areas that were available to hunter-gatherers were—and continue to be—encroached upon by the settlements of agriculturalists. In the resulting competition for use, hunter-gatherer societies either adopted these practices or moved to other areas. In addition, Jared Diamond has blamed a decline in the availability of wild foods, as the number and size of agricultural societies increased, they expanded into lands traditionally used by hunter-gatherers. As a result of the now near-universal human reliance upon agriculture, archaeologists can use evidence such as stone tool use to track hunter-gatherer activities, including mobility. Most hunter-gatherers are nomadic or semi-nomadic and live in temporary settlements, mobile communities typically construct shelters using impermanent building materials, or they may use natural rock shelters, where they are available

14.
Foraging
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Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animals fitness because it plays an important role in an ability to survive. Foraging theory is a branch of ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment where the animal lives. Behavioral ecologists use economic models to understand foraging, many of these models are a type of optimality model, thus foraging theory is discussed in terms of optimizing a payoff from a foraging decision. The payoff for many of these models is the amount of energy an animal receives per unit time, more specifically, foraging theory predicts that the decisions that maximize energy per unit time and thus deliver the highest payoff will be selected for and persist. Behavioral ecologists first tackled this topic in the 1960s and 1970s and their goal was to quantify and formalize a set of models to test their null hypothesis that animals forage randomly. Learning is defined as a change or modification of a behavior based on a previous experience. Since an animals environment is changing, the ability to adjust foraging behavior is essential for maximization of fitness. Studies in social insects have shown there is a significant correlation between learning and foraging performance. In nonhuman primates, young individuals learn foraging behavior from their peers and elders by watching other group members forage, observing and learning from other members of the group ensure that the younger members of the group learn what is safe to eat and become proficient foragers. One measure of learning is foraging innovation—an animal consuming new food, foraging innovation is considered learning because it involves behavioral plasticity on the animals part. The animal recognizes the need to come up with a new foraging strategy, forebrain size has been associated with learning behavior. Animals with larger sizes are expected to learn better. A higher ability to innovate has been linked to larger sizes in North American. In this study, bird orders that contained individuals with larger forebrain sizes displayed a higher amount of foraging innovation, examples of innovations recorded in birds include following tractors and eating frogs or other insects killed by it and using swaying trees to catch their prey. Another measure of learning is learning, which refers to an individuals ability to associate the time of an event with the place of that event. This type of learning has been documented in the behaviors of individuals of the stingless bee species Trigona fulviventris. Foraging behavior can also be influenced by genetics, honey bee foraging activity occurs both inside and outside the hive for either pollen or nectar

15.
A Natural History of Rape
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A Natural History of Rape, Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion is a 2000 book about rape by biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer, with a foreword by psychologist Margo Wilson. They argue that the capacity for rape is either an adaptation or a byproduct of adaptive traits such as sexual desire, a Natural History of Rape provoked controversy and received extensive criticism. However, they noted that other sexual assaults, including oral or anal penetration of a man or a woman under the same conditions, can also sometimes be called rape. They suggested that theory and research in biology and evolutionary psychology can help to elucidate the ultimate causes of rape by males in different species. They criticized arguments that rape is not sexually motivated on several grounds, biologist Jerry Coyne, writing for Nature, described Thornhill and Palmers hypothesis as controversial. Thornhill and Palmer have claimed some of the criticism it has received consists of straw man arguments, contradictions. Thornhill debated the books conclusions with Brownmiller on American public radio and he suggested that Thornhill and Palmer wrongly describe premature ejaculation and the ability to detect female vulnerability as rape adaptations, when other explanations for them exist. Author Richard Morris wrote that A Natural History of Rape caused a deal of controversy. Eric Smith et al. criticized Thornhill and Palmers hypothesis that a predisposition to rape in certain circumstances is a psychological adaptation. They developed a fitness cost/benefit mathematical model and populated it with estimates of certain parameters, on the basis of their model and parameter estimates, they suggested that this would make it unlikely that rape generally would have net fitness benefits for most men. S. congressional hearing that the book threatened Americas moral fabric, pinker endorsed Thornhill and Palmers view that rape is sexually motivated, and criticized Hilary Rose. Palmer and Thornhill responded in an article in Evolutionary Psychology, david Sloan Wilson et al. argued that Thornhill and Palmer use the naturalistic fallacy inappropriately to forestall legitimate discussion about the ethical implications of their theory. According to Thornhill and Palmer, a fallacy is to infer ethical conclusions from statements of fact. Coercive sex in animals Sexual Violence, Opposing Viewpoints Human Nature, scientists Debate Notion of an Evolutionary Drive- NYTimes

16.
Huaorani people
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The Huaorani, Waorani or Waodani, also known as the Waos, are native Amerindians from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador who have marked differences from other ethnic groups from Ecuador. The alternate name Auca is an exonym used by the neighboring Quechua natives. Auca – awqa in Quechua – means savage and they comprise almost 4,000 inhabitants and speak the Huaorani language, a linguistic isolate that is not known to be related to any other language. Their ancestral lands are located between the Curaray and Napo rivers, about 50 miles south of El Coca and these homelands – approximately 120 miles wide and 75 to 100 miles from north to south – are threatened by oil exploration and illegal logging practices. In the past, Huaorani were able to protect their culture, in the last 40 years, they have shifted from a hunting and gathering society to live mostly in permanent forest settlements. The word Waodani means humans or men in Wao Tiriro, before the mid 20th century, it included only those kin associated with the speaker. Others in the group were called Waodoni, while outsiders were and are known by the derogatory term Cowodi. This structure duplicates the in-group/out-group naming conventions used by many peoples and it reflects a period of traumatic conflict with outsiders during the 19th and early 20th century rubber boom / oil exploration. The name Waodani represents a transliteration by English-speaking missionary linguists, the phonetic equivalent used by Spanish-speakers is Huaorani The sounds represented by the English and Spanish letters d, r and n are allophones in Wao Tededo. The Waodani are subdivided into the Toñampare, Quenahueno, Tihueno, Quihuaro, Damuintaro, Zapino, Tigüino, Huamuno, Dayuno, Quehueruno, Garzacocha, Quemperi Mima, Caruhue and Tagaeri. In traditional animist Waodani worldview, there is no distinction between the physical and spiritual worlds, and spirits are present throughout the world, the Waodani once believed that the entire world was a forest. The Oriente’s rain forest remains the basis of their physical and cultural survival. In short, as one Waodani put it, “The rivers and trees are our life. ”In all its specificities and they have remarkably detailed knowledge of its geography and ecology. The Waodani believe that all life exists spiritually and physically and do not observe a separation between these states of being, to the Waodani as many other cultures the directions North, South, East and West are sacred. They believe that a person who walks a trail to the afterlife from the West to the East. Those who have not led a life will not escape the snake and not be able to travel east, instead they will journey to the West and return to Earth to become animals. This underlies a mix of practices that recognize and respect animals, hunting supplies a major part of the Waodani diet and is of cultural significance. Before a hunting or fishing party ensues the community Shaman will often pray for a day to ensure its success, traditionally, the creatures hunted were limited to monkeys, birds, and wild peccaries

17.
Just-so stories
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Just So Stories for Little Children is a 1902 collection of origin stories by the British author Rudyard Kipling. Considered a classic of literature, the book is among Kiplings best known works. Kipling began working on the book by telling the first three chapters as bedtime stories to his daughter Josephine and these had to be told just so or she would complain. The stories describe how one animal or another acquired its most distinctive features, for the book, Kipling illustrated the stories himself. The stories have appeared in a variety of including a musical. Evolutionary biologists have noted that what Kipling did in fiction, they have done in reality, the stories, first published in 1902, are origin stories, fantastic accounts of how various features of animals came to be. A forerunner of these stories is Kiplings How Fear Came, in The Second Jungle Book, in it, Mowgli hears the story of how the tiger got his stripes. The Just So Stories each tell how an animal was modified from an original form to its current form by the acts of man. For example, the Whale has a tiny throat because he swallowed a mariner, the Camel has a hump given to him by a djinn as punishment for the camels refusing to work. The Leopards spots were painted by an Ethiopian and they had to be told just so, or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence. So at last they came to be charms, all three of them, —the whale tale, the camel tale, and the rhinoceros tale. How the Whale Got His Throat — why the larger whales eat only small prey, how the Camel Got His Hump — how the idle camel was punished and given a hump. How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin — why rhinos have folds in their skin, how the Leopard Got His Spots — why leopards have spots. The Elephants Child/How the Elephant got his Trunk — how the elephants trunk became long, the Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo — how the kangaroo assumed long legs and tail. The Beginning of the Armadillos — how a hedgehog and tortoise transformed into the first armadillos, how the First Letter Was Written — introduces the only characters who appear in more than one story, a family of cave-people, called Tegumai Bopsulai, Teshumai Tewindrow, and Taffimai Metallumai. Explains how Taffimai delivered a message to her mother. How the Alphabet Was Made — Taffimai and her father invent an alphabet, the Crab That Played with the Sea — explains the ebb and flow of the tides, as well as how the crab changed from a huge animal into a small one. The Cat That Walked by Himself — the longest story, explains how man domesticated all the animals except the cat

18.
Noam Chomsky
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Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes described as the father of modern linguistics, Chomsky is also a figure in analytic philosophy. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, born to middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. At the age of sixteen he began studies at the University of Pennsylvania, taking courses in linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy. From 1951 to 1955 he was appointed to Harvard Universitys Society of Fellows and he is credited as the creator or co-creator of the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a role in the decline of behaviorism. Associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism, while expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the Linguistics Wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later co-wrote an analysis articulating the propaganda model of media criticism, however, his defense of unconditional freedom of speech—including for Holocaust deniers—generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the early 1980s. Following his retirement from teaching, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the War on Terror. One of the most cited scholars in history, Chomsky has influenced an array of academic fields. Avram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7,1928, in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and his father was William Zev Chomsky, an Ashkenazi Jew originally from Ukraine who had fled to the United States in 1913. Chomskys mother was the Belarusian-born Elsie Simonofsky, a teacher and activist whom William had met while working at Mikveh Israel, Noam was the Chomsky familys first child. His younger brother, David Eli Chomsky, was five years later. The brothers were close, although David was more easygoing while Noam could be very competitive, as a Jew, Chomsky faced anti-semitism as a child, particularly from the Irish and German communities living in Philadelphia. He was substantially influenced by his uncle who owned a newspaper stand in New York City, whenever visiting his uncle, Chomsky frequented left-wing and anarchist bookstores in the city, voraciously reading political literature. He later described his discovery of anarchism as an accident, because it allowed him to become critical of other far-left ideologies, namely Stalinism. Chomskys primary education was at Oak Lane Country Day School, an independent Deweyite institution that focused on allowing its pupils to pursue their own interests in a non-competitive atmosphere. It was here, at age 10, that he wrote his first article, on the spread of fascism, from the age of 12 or 13, he identified more fully with anarchist politics

19.
Fetus
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A fetus is a stage in the prenatal development of viviparous organisms. In human development, a fetus or foetus is a human between the embryonic state and birth. The fetal stage of development tends to be taken as beginning at the age of eleven weeks. In biological terms, however, prenatal development is a continuum, the use of the term fetus generally implies that an embryo has developed to the point of being recognizable as a human, this is the point usually taken to be the ninth week after fertilization. A fetus is also characterized by the presence of all the body organs, though they will not yet be fully developed and functional. The word fetus is from the Latin fētus, the British, Irish, and Commonwealth spelling is foetus, which has been in use since at least 1594. It arose as a hypercorrection based on an incorrect etymology that may have originated with an error by Isidore of Seville in AD620 and this spelling is the most common in most Commonwealth nations, except in the medical literature, where fetus is used. The etymologically accurate original spelling fetus is used in Canada and the United States, in addition, fetus is now the standard English spelling throughout the world in medical journals. The spelling faetus was used historically, in humans, the fetal stage commences at the beginning of the ninth week. At the start of the stage, the fetus is typically about 30 millimetres in length from crown to rump. The head makes up half of the fetus size. Breathing-like movement of the fetus is necessary for stimulation of lung development, the heart, hands, feet, brain and other organs are present, but are only at the beginning of development and have minimal operation. The genitalia of the starts to form and placenta becomes fully functional during week 9. At this point in development, uncontrolled movements and twitches occur as muscles, the brain, and pathways begin to develop. A woman pregnant for the first time, typically feels fetal movements at about 21 weeks, whereas a woman who has given birth at least once, by the end of the fifth month, the fetus is about 20 cm long. The amount of body fat rapidly increases, thalamic brain connections, which mediate sensory input, form. Bones are fully developed, but are soft and pliable. Iron, calcium, and phosphorus become more abundant, fingernails reach the end of the fingertips

20.
Paradigm
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Paradigm comes from Greek παράδειγμα, pattern, example, sample from the verb παραδείκνυμι, exhibit, represent, expose and that from παρά, beside, beyond and δείκνυμι, to show, to point out. In rhetoric, paradeigma is known as a type of proof, the purpose of paradeigma is to provide an audience with an illustration of similar occurrences. This illustration is not meant to take the audience to a conclusion, a personal accountant is a good comparison of paradeigma to explain how it is meant to guide the audience. Anaximenes defined paradeigma as, actions that have occurred previously and are similar to, or the opposite of, the original Greek term παράδειγμα was used in Greek texts such as Platos Timaeus as the model or the pattern that the Demiurge used to create the cosmos. In linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure used paradigm to refer to a class of elements with similarities, normal science proceeds within such a framework or paradigm. A paradigm does not impose a rigid or mechanical approach, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the basic meaning of the term paradigm as a typical example or pattern of something, a pattern or model. e. Firstly, within normal science, the term refers to the set of experiments that are likely to be copied or emulated. Secondly, underpinning this set of exemplars are shared preconceptions, made prior to – and these preconceptions embody both hidden assumptions and elements that he describes as quasi-metaphysical, the interpretations of the paradigm may vary among individual scientists. Kuhn was at pains to point out that the rationale for the choice of exemplars is a way of viewing reality, that view. For well-integrated members of a discipline, its paradigm is so convincing that it normally renders even the possibility of alternatives unconvincing. Such a paradigm is opaque, appearing to be a view of the bedrock of reality itself. The conviction that the current paradigm is reality tends to disqualify evidence that might undermine the paradigm itself and it is the latter that is responsible for the eventual revolutionary overthrow of the incumbent paradigm, and its replacement by a new one. Kuhn used the expression paradigm shift for this process, and likened it to the change that occurs when our interpretation of an ambiguous image flips over from one state to another. This is significant in relation to the issue of incommensurability, an example of a currently accepted paradigm would be the standard model of physics. Mechanisms similar to the original Kuhnian paradigm have been invoked in various disciplines other than the philosophy of science and these include, the idea of major cultural themes, worldviews, ideologies, and mindsets. They have somewhat similar meanings that apply to smaller and larger examples of disciplined thought. In addition, Michel Foucault used the terms episteme and discourse, mathesis and taxinomia, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn wrote that the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science. New paradigms tend to be most dramatic in sciences that appear to be stable and mature, at that time, a statement generally attributed to physicist Lord Kelvin famously claimed, There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now

21.
Anthropology
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Anthropology is the study of various aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology and cultural anthropology study the norms and values of societies, linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the development of humans. The abstract noun anthropology is first attested in reference to history and its present use first appeared in Renaissance Germany in the works of Magnus Hundt and Otto Casmann. Their New Latin anthropologia derived from the forms of the Greek words ánthrōpos and lógos. It began to be used in English, possibly via French anthropologie, various short-lived organizations of anthropologists had already been formed. The Société Ethnologique de Paris, the first to use Ethnology, was formed in 1839 and its members were primarily anti-slavery activists. When slavery was abolished in France in 1848 the Société was abandoned and these anthropologists of the times were liberal, anti-slavery, and pro-human-rights activists. Anthropology and many other current fields are the results of the comparative methods developed in the earlier 19th century. For them, the publication of Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species was the epiphany of everything they had begun to suspect, Darwin himself arrived at his conclusions through comparison of species he had seen in agronomy and in the wild. Darwin and Wallace unveiled evolution in the late 1850s, there was an immediate rush to bring it into the social sciences. When he read Darwin he became a convert to Transformisme. His definition now became the study of the group, considered as a whole, in its details. Broca, being what today would be called a neurosurgeon, had taken an interest in the pathology of speech and he wanted to localize the difference between man and the other animals, which appeared to reside in speech. He discovered the speech center of the brain, today called Brocas area after him. The title was translated as The Anthropology of Primitive Peoples. The last two volumes were published posthumously, Waitz defined anthropology as the science of the nature of man. By nature he meant matter animated by the Divine breath, i. e. he was an animist and he stresses that the data of comparison must be empirical, gathered by experimentation

22.
Kinship
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Anthropologist Robin Fox states that the study of kinship is the study of what man does with these basic facts of life – mating, gestation, parenthood, socialization, siblingship etc. Human society is unique, he argues, in that we are working with the raw material as exists in the animal world. These social ends include the socialization of children and the formation of economic, political. Kinship can refer both to the patterns of social relationships themselves, or it can refer to the study of the patterns of relationships in one or more human cultures. Further, even within two broad usages of the term, there are different theoretical approaches. Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related by both descent – i. e. social relations during development – and by marriage. Human kinship relations through marriage are commonly called affinity in contrast to the relationships that arise in ones group of origin, in some cultures, kinship relationships may be considered to extend out to people an individual has economic or political relationships with, or other forms of social connections. Within a culture, some descent groups may be considered to lead back to gods or animal ancestors and this may be conceived of on a more or less literal basis. Kinship can also refer to a principle by which individuals or groups of individuals are organized into groups, roles, categories. Family relations can be represented concretely or abstractly by degrees of relationship, a relationship may be relative or reflect an absolute. Degrees of relationship are not identical to heirship or legal succession, many codes of ethics consider the bond of kinship as creating obligations between the related persons stronger than those between strangers, as in Confucian filial piety. In a more general sense, kinship may refer to a similarity or affinity between entities on the basis of some or all of their characteristics that are under focus. This may be due to a shared origin, a shared historical or cultural connection. For example, a person studying the roots of human languages might ask whether there is kinship between the English word seven and the German word sieben. It can be used in a more diffuse sense as in, for example, in biology, kinship typically refers to the degree of genetic relatedness or coefficient of relationship between individual members of a species. It may also be used in this sense when applied to human relationships. Family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, in most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children. Kin terminologies can be descriptive or classificatory

23.
Steven Pinker
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Steven Arthur Steve Pinker is a Canadian-born American cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology, Pinkers academic specializations are visual cognition and psycholinguistics. He has written two books that proposed a general theory of language acquisition and applied it to childrens learning of verbs. In his popular books, he has argued that the faculty for language is an instinct. He is the author of seven books for a general audience, the sixth book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, makes the case that violence in human societies has, in general, steadily declined with time, and identifies six major causes of this decline. Pinker has been named as one of the worlds most influential intellectuals by various magazines and he has won awards from the American Psychological Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society and the American Humanist Association. He delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 2013 and he has served on the editorial boards of a variety of journals, and on the advisory boards of several institutions. He has frequently participated in debates on science and society and is a regular contributor to the online science. Pinker was born in Montreal, Quebec, in 1954, to a middle-class Jewish family and his parents were Roslyn and Harry Pinker. His grandparents immigrated to Canada from Poland and Bessarabia in 1926 and his father, a lawyer, first worked as a manufacturers representative, while his mother was first a home-maker then a guidance counselor and high-school vice-principal. His brother Robert is a policy analyst for the Canadian government, while his sister, Susan Pinker, is a psychologist and writer who authored The Sexual Paradox and The Village Effect. Pinker married Nancy Etcoff in 1980 and they divorced in 1992, he married Ilavenil Subbiah in 1995 and his third wife, whom he married in 2007, is the novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein. He has two stepdaughters, the novelist Yael Goldstein Love and the poet Danielle Blau, Pinker graduated from Dawson College in 1973. He received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from McGill University in 1976 and he did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a year, after which he became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. As of 2003, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard and he currently gives lectures as a visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities, a private college in London. About his Jewish background Pinker has said, I was never religious in the theological sense, I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew. I laughed off my parents argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose and our competing predictions were put to the test at 8,00 A. M. on October 17,1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters, Pinker identifies himself as an equity feminist, which he defines as a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology

24.
The Blank Slate
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The book was nominated for the 2003 Aventis Prizes and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He also argues that moral values in claims about a blank slate opens them to the possibility of being overturned by future empirical discoveries. He further argues that a slate is in fact inconsistent with opposition to many social evils since a blank slate could be conditioned to enjoy servitude. Evolutionary and genetic inequality arguments do not necessarily support right-wing policies, Pinker writes that if everyone was equal regarding abilities it can be argued that it is only necessary to give everyone equal opportunity. On the other hand, if people have less innate ability through no fault of their own. Pinker also gives examples of harm done by the belief in a blank slate of human nature. If the human mind is a blank slate completely formed by the environment, inappropriate or excessive blame of parents since if their children do not turn out well this is assumed to be entirely environmentally caused and especially due to the behavior of the parents. Release of dangerous psychopaths who quickly commit new crimes, construction of massive and dreary tenement complexes since housing and environmental preferences are assumed to be culturally caused and superficial. Persecution and even murder of the successful who are assumed to have gained unfairly. This includes not only individuals but entire successful groups who are assumed to have become successful unfairly, examples include Jews in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, kulaks in the Soviet Union, teachers and rich peasants in the Cultural Revolution, city dwellers and intellectuals under the Khmer Rouge. Psychologist David Buss stated This may be the most important book so far published in the 21st century, Psychologist David P. Barash wrote Pinkers thinking and writing are first-rate. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins stated The Blank Slate is, I wont say it is better than The Language Instinct or How the Mind Works, but it is as good—which is very high praise indeed. Behaviorist Henry D. Schlinger wrote two more critical reviews of the book that emphasized the importance of learning, behaviorist Elliot A. Ludvig criticized Pinkers description of behaviorism and insights into behaviorist research. Philosopher John Dupré argued that the book overstated the case for biological explanations, biologist H. Allen Orr argued that Pinkers work often lacks scientific rigor, and suggests that it is soft science. He wrote, perhaps the most damaging weakness in books of the generic Blank Slate kind is their intellectual dishonesty, the paucity of nuance in the book is astonishing. Pinkers website on The Blank Slate Steven Pinker MIT video lecture for book tour Meet the Flintstones by Simon Blackburn, the Science and Politics of the Human Mind, review in the Oxonian Review The Great Debate Articles - Newcastle University debate on The Blank Slate and other topics. The Blank slate - Article by Pinker in General Psychologist, Vol.41, No.1, Spring 2006

25.
Reductionism
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Reductionism refers to several related but distinct philosophical positions regarding the connections between phenomena, or theories, reducing one to another, usually considered simpler or more basic. Theory reduction itself is divisible into three, translation, derivation and explanation, Reductionism can be applied to objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings. In the sciences, application of methodological reductionism attempts explanation of entire systems in terms of their individual, constituent parts, for example, the temperature of a gas is reduced to nothing but the average kinetic energy of its molecules in motion. Thomas Nagel speaks of psychophysical reductionism, as do others and physico-chemical reductionism, in a very simplified and sometimes contested form, such reductionism is said to imply that a system is nothing but the sum of its parts. However, a nuanced view is that a system is composed entirely of its parts. The point of mechanistic explanations is usually showing how the level features arise from the parts. Other definitions are used by other authors, such a connection is provided where the same idea can be expressed by levels of explanation, with higher levels reducible if need be to lower levels. This use of levels of understanding in part expresses our human limitations in grasping a lot of detail, however, most philosophers would insist that our role in conceptualizing reality does not change the fact that different levels of organization in reality do have different properties. Reductionism strongly reflects a certain perspective on causality, in a reductionist framework, the phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena, are called epiphenomena. Often there is an implication that the epiphenomenon exerts no causal agency on the phenomena that explain it. There is a tendency to avoid taking an epiphenomenon as being important in its own right and this attitude may extend to cases where the fundamentals are not clearly able to explain the epiphenomena, but are expected to by the speaker. In this way, for example, morality can be deemed to be nothing but evolutionary adaptation, for example, eliminationists deny the existence of life by their explanation in terms of physical and chemical processes. Daniel Dennett denies the existence of consciousness and this reductionist understanding is very different from emergentism, which intends that what emerges in emergence is more than the sum of the processes from which it emerges. Most philosophers delineate three types of reductionism and antireductionism, ontological reductionism is the belief that reality is composed of a minimum number of kinds of entities or substances. This claim is usually metaphysical, and is most commonly a form of monism, in claiming that all objects, properties. Richard Jones divides ontological reductionism into two, the reductionism of substances and the reduction of the number of operating in nature. This permits scientists and philosophers to affirm the former while being antireductionists regarding the latter and she admits that the phrase really real is apparently senseless but nonetheless has tried to explicate the supposed difference between the two. Ontological reductionism takes two different forms, token ontological reductionism and type ontological reductionism, token ontological reductionism is the idea that every item that exists is a sum item

26.
Physiology
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Physiology is the scientific study of normal mechanisms, and their interactions, which operate within a living system. A sub-discipline of biology, its focus is in how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. Given the size of the field, it is divided into, among others, animal physiology, plant physiology, cellular physiology, microbial physiology, bacterial physiology, and viral physiology. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to those who make significant achievements in this discipline by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In medicine, a state is one occurring from normal body function, rather than pathologically. Physiological studies date back to the ancient civilizations of India and Egypt alongside anatomical studies, the study of human physiology as a medical field dates back to at least 420 BC to the time of Hippocrates, also known as the father of medicine. Hippocrates incorporated his belief called the theory of humours, which consisted of four basic substance, earth, water, air. Each substance is known for having a corresponding humour, black bile, phlegm, blood and yellow bile, Hippocrates also noted some emotional connections to the four humours, which Claudis Galenus would later expand on. The critical thinking of Aristotle and his emphasis on the relationship between structure and function marked the beginning of physiology in Ancient Greece. Like Hippocrates, Aristotle took to the theory of disease. Claudius Galenus, known as Galen of Pergamum, was the first to use experiments to probe the functions of the body, unlike Hippocrates though, Galen argued that humoral imbalances can be located in specific organs, including the entire body. His modification of this theory better equipped doctors to more precise diagnoses. Galen was also the founder of experimental physiology, and for the next 1,400 years, Galenic physiology was a powerful and influential tool in medicine. Jean Fernel, a French physician, introduced the term physiology, inspired in the work of Adam Smith, Milne-Edwards wrote that the body of all living beings, whether animal or plant, resembles a factory. Where the organs, comparable to workers, work incessantly to produce the phenomena that constitute the life of the individual, in more differentiated organisms, the functional labor could be apportioned between different instruments or systems. In 1858, Joseph Lister studied the cause of blood coagulation and inflammation that resulted after previous injuries and he later discovered and implemented antiseptics in the operating room, and as a result decreases death rate from surgery by a substantial amount. The Physiological Society was founded in London in 1876 as a dining club, the American Physiological Society is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1887. The Society is, devoted to fostering education, scientific research, in 1891, Ivan Pavlov performed research on conditional reflexes that involved dogs saliva production in response to a plethora of sounds and visual stimuli

27.
Psychology
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Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well as thought. It is a discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist and can be classified as a social, behavioral, Psychologists explore behavior and mental processes, including perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. This extends to interaction between people, such as relationships, including psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas. Psychologists of diverse orientations also consider the unconscious mind, Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Psychology has been described as a hub science, with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the sciences, natural sciences, medicine, humanities. By many accounts psychology ultimately aims to benefit society, the majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Many do scientific research on a range of topics related to mental processes and behavior. The word psychology derives from Greek roots meaning study of the psyche, the Latin word psychologia was first used by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulić in his book, Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae in the late 15th century or early 16th century. In 1890, William James defined psychology as the science of mental life and this definition enjoyed widespread currency for decades. Also since James defined it, the more strongly connotes techniques of scientific experimentation. Folk psychology refers to the understanding of people, as contrasted with that of psychology professionals. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, historians note that Greek philosophers, including Thales, Plato, and Aristotle, addressed the workings of the mind. As early as the 4th century BC, Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that mental disorders had physical rather than supernatural causes, in China, psychological understanding grew from the philosophical works of Laozi and Confucius, and later from the doctrines of Buddhism. This body of knowledge involves insights drawn from introspection and observation and it frames the universe as a division of, and interaction between, physical reality and mental reality, with an emphasis on purifying the mind in order to increase virtue and power. Chinese scholarship focused on the advanced in the Qing Dynasty with the work of Western-educated Fang Yizhi, Liu Zhi. Distinctions in types of awareness appear in the ancient thought of India, a central idea of the Upanishads is the distinction between a persons transient mundane self and their eternal unchanging soul. Divergent Hindu doctrines, and Buddhism, have challenged this hierarchy of selves, yoga is a range of techniques used in pursuit of this goal

28.
Preformationism
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In the history of biology, preformationism is a formerly-popular theory that organisms develop from miniature versions of themselves. Instead of assembly from parts, preformationists believed that the form of living things exist, in real terms and it suggests that all organisms were created at the same time, and that succeeding generations grow from homunculi, or animalcules, that have existed since the beginning of creation. Epigenesis, then, in context, is the denial of preformationism, the idea that, in some sense. This word is used, on the other hand, in a more modern sense, to refer to those aspects of the generation of form during ontogeny that are not strictly genetic, or, in other words. In preformistic development, the line is present since early development. In epigenetic development, the line is present, but it appears late. In somatic embryogenesis, a germ line is lacking. Some authors call Weismannist development that in there is a distinct germ line. Pythagoras is one of the earliest thinkers credited with ideas about the origin of form in the production of offspring. It is said that he originated spermism, the doctrine that fathers contribute the essential characteristics of their offspring while mothers contribute only a material substrate, aristotle accepted and elaborated this idea, and his writings are the vector that transmitted it to later Europeans. Later, European physicians such as Galen, Realdo Colombo and Girolamo Fabrici would build upon Aristotles theories, in 1651, William Harvey published On the Generation of Animals, a seminal work on embryology that contradicted many of Aristotles fundamental ideas on the matter. Harvey famously asserted, for example, that ex ovo omnia—all animals come from eggs, because of this assertion in particular, Harvey is often credited with being the father of ovist preformationism. However, Harveys ideas about the process of development were fundamentally epigenesist, as gametes were too small to be seen under the best magnification at the time, Harveys account of fertilization was theoretical rather than descriptive. Although he once postulated a spiritous substance that exerted its effect on the female body and he guessed instead that fertilization occurred through a mysterious transference by contact, or contagion. Harveys epigenesis, more mechanistic and less vitalist than the Aristotelian version, was, thus, still, the idea that unorganized matter could ultimately self-organize into life challenged the mechanistic framework of Cartesianism, which had become dominant in the Scientific Revolution. Because of technological limitations, there was no available explanation for epigenesis. It was simpler and more convenient to postulate preformed miniature organisms that expanded in accordance with mechanical laws, so convincing was this explanation that some naturalists claimed to actually see miniature preformed animals in eggs and miniature plants in seeds. In the case of humans, the term homunculus was used, for two centuries, until the development of cell theory, preformationists would oppose epigenicists, and, inside the preformationist camp, spermists to ovists, who located the homunculus in the ova

29.
Dialectical
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The term dialectic is not synonymous with the term debate. While in theory debaters are not necessarily emotionally invested in their point of view, debates are won through a combination of persuading the opponent, proving ones argument correct, or proving the opponents argument incorrect. Debates do not necessarily require promptly identifying a clear winner or loser, however clear winners are determined by either a judge. The term dialectics is also not synonymous with the term rhetoric, concepts, like logos or rational appeal, pathos or emotional appeal, and ethos or ethical appeal, are intentionally used by rhetoricians to persuade an audience. Socrates favoured truth as the highest value, proposing that it could be discovered through reason and logic in discussion, ergo, Socrates valued rationality as the proper means for persuasion, the discovery of truth, and the determinant for ones actions. To Socrates, truth, not aretē, was the greater good, therefore, Socrates opposed the Sophists and their teaching of rhetoric as art and as emotional oratory requiring neither logic nor proof. Different forms of reasoning have emerged throughout history from the Indosphere. These forms include the Socratic method, Hindu, Buddhist, Medieval, Hegelian dialectics, Marxist, Talmudic, the purpose of the dialectic method of reasoning is resolution of disagreement through rational discussion, and, ultimately, the search for truth. One way to proceed—the Socratic method—is to show that a given hypothesis leads to a contradiction, thus, another dialectical resolution of disagreement is by denying a presupposition of the contending thesis and antithesis, thereby, proceeding to sublation to synthesis, a third thesis. Fichtean/Hegelian dialectics is based upon four concepts, Everything is transient and finite, gradual changes lead to crises, turning points when one force overcomes its opponent force. The concept of dialectic existed in the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, hence, the history of the dialectical method is the history of philosophy. In classical philosophy, dialectic is a form of reasoning based upon dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions and counter-propositions. The outcome of such a dialectic might be the refutation of a relevant proposition, or of a synthesis, or a combination of the opposing assertions, or a qualitative improvement of the dialogue. Moreover, the term dialectic owes much of its prestige to its role in the philosophies of Socrates and Plato, Aristotle said that it was the pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno of Elea who invented dialectic, of which the dialogues of Plato are the examples of the Socratic dialectical method. According to Kant, however, the ancient Greeks used the word dialectic to signify the logic of false appearance or semblance, to the Ancients, it was nothing but the logic of illusion. In Platos dialogues and other Socratic dialogues, Socrates attempts to examine someones beliefs, at times even first principles or premises by which we all reason, Socrates typically argues by cross-examining his interlocutors claims and premises in order to draw out a contradiction or inconsistency among them. According to Plato, the detection of error amounts to finding the proof of the antithesis. However, important as this objective is, the aim of Socratic activity seems to be to improve the soul of his interlocutors

30.
Richard Dawkins
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Clinton Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is a fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxfords Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, in 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Dawkins is an atheist, and is known for his criticism of creationism. In The Blind Watchmaker, he argues against the watchmaker analogy, instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and he opposes the teaching of creationism in schools. Dawkins was born in Nairobi, then in British Kenya, on 26 March 1941 and he is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan and Clinton John Dawkins, who was an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland. His father was called up into the Kings African Rifles during World War II and returned to England in 1949 and his father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins considers himself English and lives in Oxford, England, both his parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkinss questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as a normal Anglican upbringing, and that left me with nothing. From 1954 to 1959 Dawkins attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a distinct Church of England flavour, while at Oundle Dawkins read Bertrand Russells Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962, while there and he continued as a research student under Tinbergens supervision, receiving his MA and DPhil degrees by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning and choice. From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, during this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer, in 1990, he became a reader in zoology. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008, since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford and he is now an emeritus fellow. In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe and he has also edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as an editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanisms Free Inquiry magazine

31.
Child abuse
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Child abuse or child maltreatment is physical, sexual, or psychological mistreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or other caregiver. Different jurisdictions have developed their own definitions of what constitutes child abuse for the purposes of removing a child from his/her family and/or prosecuting a criminal charge, definitions of what constitutes child abuse vary among professionals, and between social and cultural groups, as well as across time. The terms abuse and maltreatment are often used interchangeably in the literature, Child maltreatment can also be an umbrella term covering all forms of child abuse and child neglect. Defining child maltreatment depends on prevailing cultural values as they relate to children, child development, in general, abuse refers to acts of commission while neglect refers to acts of omission. Child maltreatment includes both acts of commission and acts of omission on the part of parents or caregivers that cause actual or threatened harm to a child. Delayed effects of abuse and neglect, especially emotional neglect. The World Health Organization distinguishes four types of maltreatment, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological abuse. Among professionals and the public, people often do not agree on what behaviors constitute physical abuse of a child. Physical abuse often does not occur in isolation, but as part of a constellation of behaviors including authoritarian control, anxiety-provoking behavior, and this includes hitting, beating, kicking, shaking, biting, strangling, scalding, burning, poisoning and suffocating. Much physical violence against children in the home is inflicted with the object of punishing, joan Durrant and Ron Ensom write that most physical abuse is physical punishment in intent, form, and effect. Overlapping definitions of abuse and physical punishment of children highlight a subtle or non-existent distinction between abuse and punishment. Multiple injuries or fractures at different stages of healing can raise suspicion of abuse, physical abuse in childhood has also been linked to homelessness in adulthood. Child sexual abuse is a form of abuse in which an adult or older adolescent abuses a child for sexual stimulation. Sexual abuse refers to the participation of a child in an act aimed toward the physical gratification or the financial profit of the person committing the act. Selling the sexual services of children may be viewed and treated as child abuse rather than simple incarceration, Children who are the victims are also at an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections due to their immature immune systems and a high potential for mucosal tears during forced sexual contact. In the United States, approximately 15% to 25% of women, in over one-third of cases, the perpetrator is also a minor. In 2014, the APA stated that, Childhood psychological abuse as harmful as sexual or physical abuse, nearly 3 million U. S. children experience some form of maltreatment annually. Psychological maltreatment is the most challenging and prevalent form of child abuse, victims of emotional abuse may react by distancing themselves from the abuser, internalizing the abusive words, or fighting back by insulting the abuser

Evolutionary psychology
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Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological structure from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which psychological traits are evolved adaptations – that is. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, Evolutionary psychologi

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Diagrammatic representation of the divergence of modern taxonomic groups from their common ancestor

Straw man
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A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponents argument, while refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be attacking a straw man, however, Hamblins classic text Fallacies neither mentions it as a distinct type,

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U.S. President William McKinley has shot a cannon (labeled McKinley's Letter) which has involved a "straw man" and its constructors (Carl Schurz, Oswald Garrison Villard, Richard Olney) in a great explosion. Caption: S M A S H E D!, Harper's Weekly, September 22, 1900

Nature versus nurture
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The alliterative expression nature and nurture in English has been in use since at least the Elizabethan period and goes back to medieval French. The combination of the two concepts as complementary is ancient, galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his half-cousin, Charles Darwin. The view that humans acquire all or

Neurobiology
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Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. It is a branch of biology, that deals with the anatomy, biochemistry, molecular biology. It also draws upon fields including mathematics, pharmacology, physics, engineering, Neuroscience has also given rise to such other disciplines as neuroeducation, neuroethics, and neurolaw. The techniq

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The Golgi stain first allowed for the visualization of individual neurons.

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Photograph of a stained neuron in a chicken embryo

Tim Ingold
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Tim Ingold FBA FRSE Dr h. c is a British anthropologist, and Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He was educated at Leighton Park School in Reading, UK and he attended Churchill College, Cambridge, initially studying natural sciences but shifting to anthropology. His doctoral work was conducted with the Skolt Saami of northe

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Timothy Ingold FBA FRSE

Marshall Sahlins
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Marshall David Sahlins is an American anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory. He is currently Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Sahlins received his bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees at the University of Michigan where h

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Marshall Sahlins

Neuroplasticity
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Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity or neural plasticity, is an umbrella term that describes lasting change to the brain throughout an individuals life course. The term gained prominence in the half of the 20th century. This notion is in contrast with the scientific consensus that the brain develops during a critical period in early chi

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Contrary to conventional thought as expressed in this diagram, brain functions are not confined to certain fixed locations.

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A diagrammatic explanation of the mirror box. The patient places the good limb into one side of the box (in this case the right hand) and the amputated limb into the other side. Due to the mirror, the patient sees a reflection of the good hand where the missing limb would be (indicated in lower contrast). The patient thus receives artificial visual feedback that the "resurrected" limb is now moving when they move the good hand.

Synapse
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In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron. Some authors generalize this concept to include the communication from a neuron to any cell type, such as to a motor cell. Santiago Ramón y Cajal proposed that neurons are not continuous throughout the body, yet still co

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The synapse and synaptic vesicle cycle

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Postsynaptic density

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Major elements in chemical synaptic transmission

Social contract
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The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract, a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept, the starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent any political

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The original cover of Thomas Hobbes 's work Leviathan, 1651.

Syllogism
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A syllogism is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. In its earliest form, defined by Aristotle, from the combination of a statement and a specific statement. For example, knowing that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a

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Relationships between the four types of propositions in the square of opposition (Black areas are empty, red areas are nonempty.)

Predicate logic
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First-order logic – also known as first-order predicate calculus and predicate logic – is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. This distinguishes it from propositional logic, which does not use quantifiers, Sometimes theory is understood in a more formal sense, which is just a set of sen

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Law of excluded middle

Hypotheses
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A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations that cannot satisfactorily be explained with the scientific theories. Even though the hypothesis and theory are often used synonym

Hunter-gatherer
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A hunter-gatherer is a human living in a society in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, in contrast to agricultural societies, which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was humanitys first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history, following the invention of agriculture, hunter

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A San man from Namibia. The San still live full-time the traditional way, as hunter-gatherers.

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A 19th century engraving of an Indigenous Australian encampment.

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A Shoshone encampment in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, photographed by Percy Jackson, 1870

Foraging
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Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animals fitness because it plays an important role in an ability to survive. Foraging theory is a branch of ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment where the animal lives. Behavioral ecologists use economic models to understand foraging, many o

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A troop of olive baboons (Papio anubis) foraging in Laikipia, Kenya. Young primates learn from elders in their group about proper foraging

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A European honey bee extracts nectar. According to Hunt (2007), two genes have been associated with the sugar concentration of the nectar honey bees collect.

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A male northern cardinal at a bird feeder. Birds feeding at a bird feeder is an example of a dispersion economy. This is when it may not be in an animal's best interest to forage in a group.

A Natural History of Rape
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A Natural History of Rape, Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion is a 2000 book about rape by biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer, with a foreword by psychologist Margo Wilson. They argue that the capacity for rape is either an adaptation or a byproduct of adaptive traits such as sexual desire, a Natural History of Rape provo

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Cover of the first edition

Huaorani people
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The Huaorani, Waorani or Waodani, also known as the Waos, are native Amerindians from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador who have marked differences from other ethnic groups from Ecuador. The alternate name Auca is an exonym used by the neighboring Quechua natives. Auca – awqa in Quechua – means savage and they comprise almost 4,000 inhabitants and sp

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A Huaorani village in Ecuador.

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A Huaorani blowgun

Just-so stories
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Just So Stories for Little Children is a 1902 collection of origin stories by the British author Rudyard Kipling. Considered a classic of literature, the book is among Kiplings best known works. Kipling began working on the book by telling the first three chapters as bedtime stories to his daughter Josephine and these had to be told just so or she

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First edition (publ. Macmillan & Co.)

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How the Rhinoceros got his Skin, woodcut by Kipling

Noam Chomsky
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Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes described as the father of modern linguistics, Chomsky is also a figure in analytic philosophy. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, born to middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish i

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Noam Chomsky at an antiwar rally in Vancouver, 2004

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Anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker (left) and English democratic socialist George Orwell (right) were both influences on the young Chomsky.

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Noam Chomsky (1977)

Fetus
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A fetus is a stage in the prenatal development of viviparous organisms. In human development, a fetus or foetus is a human between the embryonic state and birth. The fetal stage of development tends to be taken as beginning at the age of eleven weeks. In biological terms, however, prenatal development is a continuum, the use of the term fetus gener

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A human fetus, attached to placenta, at around twelve weeks after fertilization. Until around nine weeks after fertilization, this prenatal human would have been described as an embryo.

Paradigm
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Paradigm comes from Greek παράδειγμα, pattern, example, sample from the verb παραδείκνυμι, exhibit, represent, expose and that from παρά, beside, beyond and δείκνυμι, to show, to point out. In rhetoric, paradeigma is known as a type of proof, the purpose of paradeigma is to provide an audience with an illustration of similar occurrences. This illus

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The Flammarion engraving, wood engraving, Paris 1888

Anthropology
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Anthropology is the study of various aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology and cultural anthropology study the norms and values of societies, linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the development of humans. The abstract noun anthropology is fi

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Forensic anthropologists can help identify skeletonized human remains, such as these found lying in scrub in Western Australia, c. 1900–1910.

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Anthropology

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Excavations at the 3800-year-old Edgewater Park Site, Iowa

Kinship
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Anthropologist Robin Fox states that the study of kinship is the study of what man does with these basic facts of life – mating, gestation, parenthood, socialization, siblingship etc. Human society is unique, he argues, in that we are working with the raw material as exists in the animal world. These social ends include the socialization of childre

Steven Pinker
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Steven Arthur Steve Pinker is a Canadian-born American cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology, Pinkers academic specializations are visual cognition and psycholinguistics.

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Pinker in 2011

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Pinker in Göttingen, 2010

The Blank Slate
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The book was nominated for the 2003 Aventis Prizes and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He also argues that moral values in claims about a blank slate opens them to the possibility of being overturned by future empirical discoveries. He further argues that a slate is in fact inconsistent with opposition to many social evils since a blank slat

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Cover of the first edition

Reductionism
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Reductionism refers to several related but distinct philosophical positions regarding the connections between phenomena, or theories, reducing one to another, usually considered simpler or more basic. Theory reduction itself is divisible into three, translation, derivation and explanation, Reductionism can be applied to objects, phenomena, explanat

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Descartes held that non-human animals could be reductively explained as automata — De homine, 1662.

Physiology
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Physiology is the scientific study of normal mechanisms, and their interactions, which operate within a living system. A sub-discipline of biology, its focus is in how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. Given the size of the field, it is divided into,

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Oil painting depicting Claude Bernard, the father of modern physiology, with his pupils

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Animals

Psychology
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Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well as thought. It is a discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist and can be cl

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Wilhelm Wundt (seated) with colleagues in his psychological laboratory, the first of its kind.

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MRI depicting the human brain. The arrow indicates the position of the hypothalamus.

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Social psychology studies the nature and causes of social behavior.

Preformationism
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In the history of biology, preformationism is a formerly-popular theory that organisms develop from miniature versions of themselves. Instead of assembly from parts, preformationists believed that the form of living things exist, in real terms and it suggests that all organisms were created at the same time, and that succeeding generations grow fro

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A tiny person inside a sperm, as drawn by Nicolaas Hartsoeker in 1695

Dialectical
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The term dialectic is not synonymous with the term debate. While in theory debaters are not necessarily emotionally invested in their point of view, debates are won through a combination of persuading the opponent, proving ones argument correct, or proving the opponents argument incorrect. Debates do not necessarily require promptly identifying a c

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Hegel and Hegelianism

Richard Dawkins
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Clinton Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is a fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxfords Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, in 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Found

Child abuse
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Child abuse or child maltreatment is physical, sexual, or psychological mistreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or other caregiver. Different jurisdictions have developed their own definitions of what constitutes child abuse for the purposes of removing a child from his/her family and/or prosecuting a criminal charge,

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Rib fractures in an infant secondary to child abuse

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A child soldier of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (2007). In parts of the world, children are used in military conflicts.

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Diagrammatic representation of the divergence of modern taxonomic groups from their common ancestor

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Nikolaas Tinbergen, whose work influenced sociobiology.

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In the decades after World War II, the term "eugenics" had taken on a negative connotation and became increasingly unpopular within academic science. Many organizations and journals that had their origins in the eugenics movement began to distance themselves from the philosophy, as when Eugenics Quarterly became Social Biology in 1969.

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Diagrammatic representation of the divergence of modern taxonomic groups from their common ancestor

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Changes in a population's allele frequency following a population bottleneck: the rapid and radical decline in population size has reduced the population's genetic variation.

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When very few members of a population migrate to form a separate new population, the founder effect occurs. For a period after the foundation, the small population experiences intensive drift. In the figure this results in fixation of the red allele.